$190,000: Cuts to sheriff’s contract with the city of New Carlisle
$195: Estimated year-end general fund balance for New Carlisle presented on Monday
$6,557: Revised estimated year-end general fund balance for New Carlisle drafted Tuesday
New Carlisle council members will likely make more cuts than they had expected after learning this week that city could have less than $200 in its general fund by the end of the year.
Council members held a work session Monday night and were told by city administrators that the recent $190,000 in cuts to the police budget weren’t enough to avoid a potential financial shortfall.
“We were under the impression we would have $100-something thousand dollars in the bank. And when we were told no, we weren’t even going to have that … we got kind of upset,” Councilman John Krabacher said on Tuesday.
Council members recently voted to eliminate two of four Clark County sheriff’s deputies that patrol the city and to cut WestCAT bus service as they worked to trim between $250,000 to $300,000 from the general fund.
But council members believed fewer cuts would be needed.
Some miscommunication may have occurred between city administrators and council members, Krabacher said, and that could cause problems.
“Right now I’m very concerned because what it’s going to end up doing, it’s going to fracture the administration with the council. Instead of working together, we’re going to probably end up separating,” Krabacher said.
Discovering why such a disconnect occurred between council members and the city’s administration is a crucial next step, said Bill McIntire, a New Carlisle city council member.
In the meantime, the budget process needs to start over with a new framework in mind for how the city needs to balance its finances, he said, adding he and other council members were shocked when they reviewed the proposed budget that showed ending the year with $195.
Council members and city administrators discussed the city’s finances numerous times leading up to Monday night’s meeting, McIntire said, but they had a different understanding of the budget than administrators.
“It felt like we were misled and we certainly were not corrected when we were espousing the wrong information,” he said.
City Manager Kim Jones said she doesn’t know why council members were surprised by the city’s finances and that she has repeated the need to cut more than just the deputies.
“I don’t know because in our mind, in the administration’s mind, we were always talking about more cuts only because we didn’t know for sure what our ending balances were going to be until you close the year, so we couldn’t say for sure how much we were going to need,” Jones said.
Krabacher has proposed closing the pool and two employees — one office personnel and one laborer.
“The pool is a money pit … For the last five years we had to put money back into the fund in order to balance it out and that comes out of the general fund,” he said. “We could use that for streets. We could use that for other things.”
Council members will need to pick through the city’s books in detail to develop a new budget that allows the city to function, McIntire said.
Jones has proposed eliminating repairs at a shelter house, a computer server at a finance department and park improvements, which would allow the city to end the year with about $6,000 in the general fund.
The city’s financial woes are due in part to state and federal budget cuts, Jones said, as well money owed on the foreclosed Twin Creeks Subdivision.
The city is on the hook to pay about $80,000 a year to cover treasury notes issued in 2004 to pay for improvements on the subdivision.
A previous finance director failed to budget the $80,000 last year, leaving the city $63,000 in the red.
Officials also had hoped to collect some money to pay off the loan on about 30 unsold Twin Creeks properties last year, but the sale is on hold after prosecutors discovered an issue with the deeds.
The failed Twin Creeks development project has been a drain on the city, Jones said, because payments on the property come out of the city’s general fund, which pays for its employees, deputies and road repairs.
“It kind of ties our hands and it’s a long-term debt. It’s a 20-year debt and we’re only nine years into it so we still have a long way to go to make those payments,” Jones said.
In addition, voters overwhelmingly defeated a five-year, half-percent income tax levy request in November that would have generated $500,000 a year for police protection and road repairs.
Council members will ask voters again to approve the levy on the May ballot for police protection only.
Curt Studebaker, a small business owner in New Carlisle, said the city’s finances and especially the decision to cut the deputy staffing concern him.
“What’s next? Because I think that should be at the bottom of the list (for cuts) and not the top of the list,” Studebaker said about the deputies.
Staff Writer Matt Sanctis contributed to this report.
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